


Show you what all that howl is for

by InkandOwl



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Lovers to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Road Trips, Stanley Uris Lives, Trans Male Character, Trans Richie Tozier, it's not explicit, mentions of underaged sexuality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:54:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23823406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkandOwl/pseuds/InkandOwl
Summary: They don’t talk on the way back to the townhouse. They all sit in a huddled silence until Stan laughs quickly, elbow leaned against the back of the truck. It’s hard to hear him over the wind but he yells, “You remember when I introduced you to everyone back in elementary school?” He taps his foot against the inside of Richie’s leg.Eddie is curled into Richie’s side and he unfurls enough to look up at him. Richie considers it, “You called me an ugly girl. Right in front of Bill and Eddie and God.” He shakes his head and Stan beams at him.“But what a fuckingman.” He says and Richie throws his head back, laughing wildly.-He could walk through the front door of the townhouse and drop dead and it won’t matter, because Richie Tozier had lived. Even for a moment.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 29
Kudos: 174





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I think my formative years were really shaped by a few things, but one of those was reading about Richie Tozier's werewolf at fourteen, and going, "Oh, I have one of those!" and writing trans Richie was a long time in the making about it. This fic isn't going to deal with transphobia or body dysmorphia or insecurity. There's a real catharsis to writing that for trans writers, definitely, but there's also a freedom to having stories where we're just existing and maybe that's as a sloppy forty year old man that doesn't know how to dress himself. You can hang with my on twitter @PaperWarewolf and I doodle as well! 
> 
> (I didn't intend for a disclaimer in the beginning of this, oof, but I feel really strongly about it because I'm old and tired and I don't want to see young trans people and people discovering their identity to only have access to fiction that makes them feel like they have to hate themselves or wait for a cis person to accept them for them to be genuine. Anyways, hooty hoo! I'm not actually this serious of a person usually)

Richie Tozier is an ugly girl. 

That’s what Stan tells him when they’re nine years old and kicking rocks by the steps of Derry Elementary School. “You’re such an ugly girl.” 

Everyone goes silent. Bill curls his fist around the rock that he’s ready to heave across the street and Eddie looks like he’s going to pass out. Richie’s eyes go wide behind his glasses and he stays stock still when Stan reaches forward and touches the mass of black curls that his mom had tried to tie up in a ribbon on top of his head. “Stan, you can’t say— All girls are pretty.” Eddie says, with his earnest little voice, in his school uniform button up with his fingers twisting against the buttons on the front with nervousness.

He says it like a child who’s just heard his friend tell an adult to shut up. 

“Sure, girls are pretty, but Richie’s not a girl.” Stan’s knees are scraped up where they poke out from underneath the hems of his khaki shorts and he reaches down to scratch at one of the peeling scabs, “Right, Richie?” 

Stan is his best friend, he’s known him the longest, and he says it with a practiced ease. Bill and Eddie have only known him for two days now, though, and Richie wants them to like him. He nods his head slowly, the way his mom taught him to be when he doesn’t want to be _too much_. “Why are you wearing a skirt? And a bow?” Eddie’s eyebrows are serious and darker than the hair on his head and Richie follows them on the exciting trail that they venture over his face. “You’re going to get in trouble by the teachers if they find out you’re wearing a girl’s uniform!” 

It’s like a flip is switched on instantly inside of Richie. Vibrant and loud and Eddie shaped when he fusses about Richie like he’s sizing him up, making him think of his grandma’s jack russell when he has to inspect everyone’s ankles before they enter the house. _Bark louder!_ Richie thinks, _Let’s run, let’s play, let’s howl together!_

“I’m incognito, Mister Ed. Get it? Like the talking horse? Get it?” 

Eddie sputters, cheeks red and ruddy and he stamps his foot and Bill turns his wide blue eyes on Richie, full of mirth and laughs out, “Y-y-you got him all w-wuh-worked up!” 

-

There’s mud splattered up Richie’s shins, around his calves and to his knees. It’s already drying into itchy sand and he rubs his ankles together before he barrels into the house. “Honey, take your shoes off!” His mom’s voice carries in from the living room and he toes his sneakers off by the door. 

“They’re off!” He yells back.

He’s ready to slink up the stairs, into his room to close the door and listen to his cassettes, and to write, and to— think? Richie’s thoughts feel everywhere these days, more than they ever were, and he woke up next to Eddie this morning and sent his whole mind racing. The sides of their arms pressed together was a simmering sort of warm that made Richie want to seek it out like a homing device straight to his chest. The way Eddie seemed to emanate heat in his sleep, lips parted in a distant pout, chapped and pink and Richie considered pressing a kiss to them. Just to feel them. To taste them. 

“Richie, can you come here?” His mom’s voice was that sweet cadence that suggested she wanted to talk about something she knew was going to make Richie uncomfortable. 

Maggie Tozier is sitting in the floral upholstered chair that her grandmother made seven thousand years ago, her stockinged feet crossed at the ankles in front of her. Richie drops his backpack onto the ground, “What’s up?” 

“Sit down.” His stomach turns over into knots, and he racks his brain for anything he might’ve fucked up in school today.

“Am I in trouble?” 

Maggie’s eyebrows furrow, “No, you’re not— I just wanted to talk to you about having boys over at night. You’re getting a little too old to keep having sleepovers with your friends.” 

“We always have sleepovers though, and Bill and Stan and Mike, they all spend the night at each others houses too—”

“Rich, please.” Maggie takes a deep breath, “You’re fourteen now, things are changing, your bodies are changing. It’s not appropriate to have boys in your bed— You can still hang out, even at night, they just have to go home once it’s late.”

“Mom—”

“Beverly can still spend the night!” Maggie says it cheerfully. A pleasant compromise in her mind. 

Richie's eyes are burning and he swallows harshly. His parents call him Richie. They let him cut his hair, buy him the clothes he wants, call him their son, but the weight of this threatens to crumble all of that. “I’m— I’m a boy though, it doesn’t—”

“I know.” Maggie gets up so that she can rush over and take both of Richie’s hands in her own, “I know, sweetheart, but listen to me— your body is different, and you’re getting older and it’s going to keep getting—” She stops and Richie chokes on a terrible sob. Maggie pulls him tight against her chest, “Don’t cry, please don’t cry, we can— I’ll fix it, baby.” 

Maggie had never cried when Richie shunned the pretty lace dresses and the ribbons and clips that she used to push Richie’s long black hair into something nice. Something sensible that good girls who wore mary janes and bubblegum lip gloss wore. She never cried when she said _Bridget, Bridget, Bridgie, Bridgie— call me Richie!_ , but she cries now, wiping the tears off of Richie’s cheeks. “I’m sorry.” Richie says and Maggie shushes him, “Are you mad at me?” 

“Never. I’m mad that this world isn’t easier for you.” 

She lets Richie’s friends spend the night. 

She lets them spend the night until she walks in on Richie, limbs tangled with Eddie and kissing and kissing and kissing. It’s all they’re doing, eager mouths pressed together, chasing after every kiss with curious tongues and curiouser hands that seek out the shape of each other’s ribs over the outside of their clothes. Richie doesn’t even know his mom’s walked in on them, silent under the noise of music turned up too high, and the wet sound of Eddie’s lips against his own, the soft click of it rattling around Richie’s head and his chest. 

He doesn’t know that Maggie’s come and gone until Eddie kisses the side of Richie’s neck, just once, softly, his cheeks a soft pink when he pulls back with a quiet huff of a laugh, “Are we, um—” 

His voice is strained, cracking where puberty is strangling any even timber out of it, “Are we what?” Richie teases him, although he feels just as strung out on it. Eddie flushes, hands pressing nervously into his lap, “Aww, did I make you speechless, Eddie Spaghetti? I’m known to do that, you know.”

“No you’re not.” Eddie snaps, no real heat to it, but it eases him into tapping Richie’s knee and asking, “Are we dating? Like, boyfriends?” 

There’s a knock on the bedroom door and they jump apart, scrambling to look like they were just hanging out on the bed. Maggie looks carefully composed, “Gentlemen, it’s getting late.” She looks between them. Richie almost does it. He almost opens his mouth and tells her they have a deal— that Richie’s friends are allowed to stay over still, but her eyes slide over to his and her eyebrow quirks just a fraction. Challenging him to say something. “Eddie, do you need a ride home? Went can drive you.” 

Eddie looks at Richie, his lips red and kiss bitten and his hair pushed out of its usually neat hold, “Oh, um, no thank you, Mrs. Tozier.” He slides off the bed, pulling on his Vans, “I rode my bike.” Maggie nods, looks seriously over at Richie and then walks away. “Fuck, she definitely knows, right?” 

“Oh, totally.” Richie grins easily at Eddie while he panics, “Chill out, she’s not mad—” he puts on his best dad voice then, “Just disappointed.” 

“ _Richie_ ” Eddie hisses and Richie grabs the front of his shirt, pulls him down for another quick kiss. 

“I wanna be your boyfriend.” He says quietly against Eddie’s lips, and then lets him go. “Bye!” 

Eddie stumbles, looks between Richie and the doorway multiple times and pecks him on the mouth, “Okay, goodnight.” 

Richie falls back onto the bed, stretching all of his limbs out pleasantly, and even his mom coming back into his room doesn’t keep the satisfied smile off his face, “No more Eddie sleepovers.” She taps Richie’s forehead. 

“What if we keep the door cracked?” Richie asks, but he laughs when Maggie puts a finger in his face. 

“No Eddie after dark.” She warns, “And no sex before marriage!” 

Richie laughs, loud and unbidden, “Like Eddie would ever, he probably thinks it’ll give him cancer.”

“Be nice to him.” Maggie warns

“How am I supposed to be nice to him if I’m not allowed to let him hit it?” 

Maggie all but shrieks, “Richard Tozier, please!” 

-

“This has been,” Stanley Uris is every bit as serious and exhausted as he was in his youth, “without a doubt, the weirdest reunion.” 

The bags underneath his eyes are deep and shadowed and his grins at Richie like this is the easiest thing in the world. Another day, another trip to the house on Neibolt street, another near death experience with his six best friends. Richie scratches at the stubble on the side of his jaw and breathes out a laugh, “You guys look good though.” 

They’re hunched over in the dust, the wind kicking it past them, and Richie slumps his shoulders forward. He slowly undoes the buttons of his mustard yellow shirt, caked it blood and grime and lets it fall onto the ground next to him. Beverly falls onto her back behind him, letting out a lengthy sigh, “We’re too old for this.” She says and Mike grunts in agreement, patting her shoulder. 

“Let’s go ahead and shelve our clown hunting careers, huh?” Stan pushes up the sleeves to his cardigan like it isn’t covered in sewer water. 

Eddie is cross legged next to him, hunched over Richie’s leather jacket and shivering. Richie bumps his shoulder against him, “You alright, man?” 

He looks up at Richie, eyes rimmed red and watery and he sniffs, shaking his head, “I don’t want to go home.” He says, choked off and barely more than a whisper. “Did you remember me? When we got here.” 

Eddie’s moved closer to him, so that he can talk to Richie is a hushed voice. Words only meant for each other. Richie tries to look at him through the part of his glasses that isn’t cracked, “Yeah, I remembered all of you once I saw you in the Jade. Little Eddie Spaghetti.” 

He goes for a smile and Eddie shakes his head, “I was more than that to you, right? You— you loved me.” 

“Eds—”

“Please tell me you loved me. Please tell me that was real.” Eddie’s voice wobbles dangerously and Richie can’t help it. He presses his thumb to the dip underneath Eddie’s chin. 

“Yeah.” Eddie practically crumbles in his relief, “Yeah, you were mine. Sweetest thing I ever had in my life.” Richie brushes away an errant tear. Eddie grips his wrist, kisses his palm quickly, but he doesn’t let it go. He laces their fingers together in his lap. 

“We would just kiss all day, never— we never did figure it out past that.” Eddie laughs, quiet and rests his uninjured cheek against Richie’s shoulder.

“We were young.” 

“I don’t want to go home, Richie.” 

He sounds fourteen again, fifteen, sixteen, curled into Richie’s side and trying not to let the fear of Sonia Kaspbrak creep into his voice. Richie gets up, pulls Eddie to his feet, and they’re all filing out to Mike’s truck. Ready to pile into the flatbed like unruly teens, “Don’t. Come back with me. Or I’ll come to New York, or we’ll go to Alaska, I really don’t care.” 

They don’t talk on the way back to the townhouse. They all sit in a huddled silence until Stan laughs quickly, elbow leaned against the back of the truck. It’s hard to hear him over the wind but he yells, “You remember when I introduced you to everyone back in elementary school?” He taps his foot against the inside of Richie’s leg. 

Eddie is curled into Richie’s side and he unfurls enough to look up at him. Richie considers it, “You called me an ugly girl. Right in front of Bill and Eddie and God.” He shakes his head and Stan beams at him. 

“But what a fucking _man_.” He says and Richie throws his head back, laughing wildly. 

Beverly giggles and Ben grips his bicep muttering out, “Yeah, Rich, what the hell are these?” The poke and prod at him, scratching at the shadow of facial hair and the tops of his shoulders and Richie feels beautifully and irreversibly perfect. He could walk through the front door of the townhouse and drop dead and it won’t matter, because Richie Tozier had lived. Even for a moment. 

When they get back, Eddie swears and spits and cusses and wails his fists against Mike’s chest; kisses him on the cheek and says, “Thanks, asshole. Fuck you.” And then he steals a bottle of bourbon right from behind the bar, leaves the cap on the counter and drinks straight off the glass. Mike looks so fond, and Richie can relate. No one bothers him about trotting up the stairs after Eddie. 

“Richie.” Eddie says when they’re in his bedroom, tipping back the bourbon. “Richie Richie Richie.” He says like he’s trying it on. 

“Me me me.” Richie says back because he’s nervous and he’s happy and he’s tired. “Are you going to drink that whole thing yourself?” 

Eddie looks at him, eyes wide and startled. A deer in the headlights. Then he laughs and holds the bourbon up, “No, oh my god, come help me.” 

The wind up on the floor. Showered and changed into pajamas after Richie had retreated back to his room for a moment, and they tangle their fingers together with drunken giggles. “We used to kiss all the time.” Eddie presses his mouth against Richie’s shoulder where he’s propped up against him, “When I was in college I would kiss all these boys with stupid long limbs and giant glasses, and then I would just,” he breathes out sadly, “I would just leave. Go back to my dorm or the library, and I couldn’t shake how sad I felt. Like I was cheating on someone I didn’t even know.” 

It tangles up in the shape of sorrow and Richie nods at his lap, “I don’t think my parents ever remembered.” 

“Me?” 

“That I’m— that I was born—“ 

“Your parents forgot that?” 

Richie thinks about the way that had left Derry. How Richie had left Derry and fucked off to California with pittance for pocket change and the next time Maggie and Wentworth has seen him he was three years deep on testosterone and long since healed from his top surgery and Maggie had simply patted his stomach and said, “You look healthy!” He bites his lip, numb with alcohol and knocks his knees together, laughter bubbling out of him like it’s overflowing. “Our lives were really fucked up, man!” 

Eddie presses his thumb into the corner of his eye and snorts, “Jesus, yeah they were.” Richie watches him work his wedding band off. A sensible, hypoallergenic metal that he drops onto the stale carpeting when he leans his head back against the bed behind them, “Your mom caught us making out so many times, I thought one day she might slap me, or banish me from the house.” 

“Nah,” Richie laughs and flicks at the side of the glass, “They didn’t care much about my propriety. Pretty sure they thought _I_ was corrupting _you_ anyways.” They fall into a beat of comfortable silence and Richie blurts out, despite the awkwardness, because it’s just too funny, “My dad did catch you in the basement that one time with your hand down my pants though.” 

It’s worth it for the way Eddie turns bright red and ends up inhaling his own spit, choking into his shoulder for a moment while Richie laughs and pats the top of his knee. “You remember that?” Eddie fumbles for the bottle. 

“As if I could ever forget being fingered next to an air hockey table while Phantom of the Mall was on TV, really setting the mood for us.” 

Eddie scrubs his hand over his face like he’s finally remembering it himself and tells him, “I was probably awful, sorry about that.” Richie just shrugs, taps their feet together, “It’s—” Eddie pauses, laughs to himself, “It’s nice, knowing that I had this. I spent over twenty years thinking I’ve never been in love. That no one’s ever loved me, so this is— I’m glad I got to have that. With you.” 

“Does it make the clown seem worth it?”

It’s a joke, meant to lighten how dense this is making Richie feel, and Eddie smiles a little sadly, “Yeah, actually. Like maybe my life was worthwhile after all.” 

Richie hugs him, he has to. Eddie wraps his arms around Richie’s back, leaning his face into Richie’s neck. “I’ve really missed you, Eds.” 

Eddie hums, his pointy nose dragging briefly over Richie’s collarbone, “Missed you too, Rich.” Eddie smells like bourbon and a carefully curated mix of soaps and moisturizers and face scrubs, the soft strands of his hair brushing against Richie’s cheek where he hasn’t yet wrestled it into place with product. “I never thought you would be this much bigger than me.” Eddie mumbles. 

“That’s transphobic.” 

Richie grins before Eddie can even start his indignant spluttering, keeping his hold on him tight so that Eddie becomes a wriggling, angry mass, “I didn’t mean it like that, it’s because you were so fucking scrawny. Fuck you, Richie.” He manages to free himself and he’s a fluffy mess, like an angry bird all feathered out in fury, “You knew what I meant.” He points a finger in Richie’s laughing face, “You’re built like a fucking barn, fucking ridiculous.” 

“You’re just miniature—”

“I’m not mini— are you kidding me?”

“—so in perspective—”

“Shut up.” Eddie pushes him over onto the floor, and Richie collapses back with a dramatic grunt, “I gave you the most mediocre five minute sexual encounter of your life and this is how you treat me?” 

Richie swoons, “You are fucking _delightful_ , Kaspbrak. You’re a fucking _dream_.” 

Eddie’s thumb swipes briefly over his cheekbone, right underneath his eye for a moment, and then he leans down, softly pressing his lips against Richie’s. It’s not a heated kiss. Not a twenty seven years in the making, _oh god, I’ve missed you_ , kiss that leaves Richie’s aching and desperate. It’s the gentle push of Eddie Kaspbrak’s lips at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, forty years old, settled into his own like they never stopped doing this. “You always made me worthwhile, Richie Tozier.” He says it quietly against Richie’s lips, the smile of it resting there and Richie pulls him down on top of him and cries.

When he wakes up in the morning, they’re still sprawled out on the floor, and Richie scratches the top of Eddie’s head and asks him, “Have you ever been to the west coast?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants to hold him in his arms and tell him that he loved him to pieces when they were kids and fuck it all if he doesn’t want to fall in big stupid love with him now. Richie wants to grab Eddie’s hands across the table and affix them to his chest, right over his wildly beating heart and ask him if he can feel it. If the way he’s alive and standing and existing is branding it’s way into his own veins. If Richie can just cover him and live inside of him and run and bite and _howl_ —

_“Can you pretend to take this seriously? Richie? One second you were here they next you’re texting me from Maine— Maine!— telling me you’re at a high school reunion, and now it was a death?”_ Steve’s speaking so closely to the phone that Richie is able to balance in on his knee and hear him just fine without the speaker on. He taps it over anyways, just so Eddie can glimpse into his day to day. 

Eddie comes to stand in front of the parking stump, wrestling with the cap of a water bottle. He quirks an eyebrow at Richie. Richie grins, all teeth, “I was going through some shit, sorry I couldn’t be more thorough with my, uh— What do the Avengers call it when they come and go from missions?” 

“A debriefing.” Eddie supplies. 

_“You’re not an Avenger— look.”_ Deep sigh from Steve, _“I’m not going to harp on you for having trauma, Rich, but— As. Your. Friend. Can you please try and be more open with me about shit? I got people asking me if you’re checked into rehab but what i’m actually concerned about is you having offed yourself. I can’t deal with that again, just— don’t put me through that again.”_

That’s a great big basket of oversharing that Richie can’t quite jab away speakerphone to fix, and Richie rubs his hand harshly over his forehead and buries his face in his hand, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry, Steve.” The sincerity at least keeps Steve from yelling again, “I’m doing a lot better now, and i’m not alone. I have a friend here with me, he’s gonna make sure I get back to California at seventy percent, at least. He’s even gonna feed me vegetables.” 

“You need more than vegetables.” Eddie taps the side of his very sensible sneaker against Richie’s boot. 

There is a momentary silence and Steve says, “ _Is that him? I like him. Hi, Richie’s friend? My kingdom if you get him to start workshopping for his next tour._ ”

“His name is Eddie Spaghetti.” Richie informs him gravely. 

“No, it’s fucking not!” Eddie growls, and promptly forms three new stress lines in his face. 

“ _Alright, well—_ ” Steve raises his voice, “ _Good luck and all that. Richie. Richie, listen, listen to me, Richie— Check in with me._ ” 

Richie salutes at his phone then says, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bye!” 

The parking lot of the Enterprise car rental has very neatly captured the atmosphere of Thanksgiving gone awry after grandma’s had too much to drink and shared the details of Aunt Mary’s affair. Richie squints up at Eddie, haloed by the backdrop of the sun, “Let’s pretend Steve didn’t say anything weird on that call.” 

Eddie, for all of his lack of good graces, is incredibly versed in tact. If tact was something done as an extreme sport. He did suffer a childhood of parental abuse— “No.” He turns his face towards the highway, profile less stern than looking directly at him, and his chin tilts just slightly. Almost defiant, like he’s battling with himself. Richie is mesmerized by the thin, knobby structure of his neck, artfully curved and more youthful looking than the rest of him. “I hate that you did that. I hate that you felt that way, and I hate, mostly, that I wasn’t there for you. But I get it.” 

He hands the bottle of water down to him and Richie takes the offering. Richie was always the only one who got to share like this with Eddie. “Did you call your wife yet?” 

“I have not.” 

He says each word carefully. Enunciated. 

“Do you want to stay with her?” 

“She’s cheating on me.” Eddie says instead of lobbying out an actual answer. “With her friends’ husband, actually. She was going over there once a week for a book club, and then it was twice a week, then twice a week for hours when her friend, Sandy, is at work— I’ve thought about telling Sandy a few times.” 

“Why didn’t you?”

Eddie sits down on the parking stump next to Richie, “I got a prenup, but it doesn’t cover everything, they never do. It’s nice to have some leverage to get me out unscathed.” 

“Blackmail, so that you can keep your Reader’s Digest collection and the pool table?” Richie folds his arms over the tops of his knees and then it settles on him that he’s talking to his best friend. That he loves. That he’s in love with, still, after how many relentless years? Comfort might be nice, “I’m sorry, that cheated on you. She’s a fuckin’ idiot.” 

Eddie watches him, taking him apart layer by molecular layer then says, “Stop being nice to me, it’s unnerving.” 

Richie jackknifes next to him and splutters, “I’m nice! I’m _nice_ , Jesus.” Eddie quirks an eyebrow and smirks, “Fine, I'm glad you got cucked by your mom-wife, it’s what you deserve.” 

“Oh my god, zero to a hundred, Tozier.”

“Choke on it.” Richie snaps muttering about how goddamn nice he is when his phone goes off with a text from Enterprise that their car is ready. “Let’s go, they found us something sensible and hybrid that probably runs on hopes and dreams.” 

Eddie looks absolutely delighted when he skips into step next to Richie, “We’ll break down in the parking lot if that’s the case.” 

-

They stop in New York and Richie sits on the hood of the car in front of Eddie’s very suburban dream house. A man in a windbreaker paces in front of his mailbox at the end of the driveway across the street and then gives up the pretenses that he’s not listening in on the impressive screaming match happening in the Kaspbrak house. He looks from the front door to Richie who shrugs and mouths ‘It’s fine.’ 

If Richie hadn’t held Pennywise’s beating heart in his hands and pressed it to pulp in his fingers, he would think that Myra Kaspbrak was a party trick away from home. The woman looks like Sonia Kaspbrak brought back from the dead and dressed up in a blonde wig. “— if you had ever been home, this wouldn’t have happened.” She’s red faced, cheeks streaked with tears and mascara, and this is a mess that Richie doesn’t know how to address from the hood of a Prius. 

Eddie has a very flimsy stony faced veneer on when he heaves a duffle bag into the back seat, “How?” Eddie rounds on her and Richie looks back over to windbreaker man, eyes widening, and the man mouths ‘yikes’. “How would it help if I was home, _Myra_? It’s not like we had a sex life anyways. It’s not like we were out here _satisfying_ each other.” 

Richie becomes very interested in his lap. 

Myra splutters, “Well, that’s hardly my fault when you couldn’t even get it up!” She cries and her face turns smug. She nods to Richie and then points at windbreaker, “Yeah. Only forty years old and his dick is already broken!” 

“Wow.” Richie mutters quietly. 

“Because. I’m. Gay!” Eddie rounds on her, heaving the car door shut hard enough that it shakes underneath Richie. Very apt for how Richie feels. Windbreaker whistles low. 

There’s a very real camaraderie between him and Richie now. Myra looks like she might be feeling as upended as Richie is. “You’re— No you’re not, we’ve—” 

Eddie leans on top of the roof, regards Myra over the top of it, “Yeah, with the help of chemicals. I’m gay, Myra, and I’m not sorry about that. Not anymore.” 

There’s a moment where it flips over for Myra. A big burnt pancake on the griddle of life and it’s shaped like Richie Tozier. “You.” She brings her waivering fingers to her mouth and it’s all very dramatic, “Are you sleeping with my husband?” The wail she lets out is impressive, and windbreaker perks up like he might jump to Richie’s rescue. 

Richie stammers and looks from Windbreaker, to Myra, to Eddie, and is blessedly saved by, “Oh for— I’m not sleeping with anyone, I’m perfectly capable of figuring out what I want without a man in my bed!” 

Shots fired! “Pew pew!” Richie cheers. 

“If you’ve never been with a man—”

“Myra—”

“—then you can’t possibly know if you’re gay.” 

“That’s a very ignorant take.” Richie slides off the hood. “If you’ve never been with a woman how do you know _you’re_ not gay?” 

It’s like Myra’s elected to believe he’s not there. Not even a sideways glance now that she knows she can’t pin any salacious accusations to them. “I’m leaving.” Eddie sighs, “I’m only taking what’s mine, you can keep the house. If you try and call me or text me I’m blocking your number and the only contact we’ll have is through our lawyers. We can make this easy, Myra.” 

Richie fumbles his way into the passenger seat and waves to Windbreaker while the Kaspbrak’s have their final standoff. Three Fingered Jack stares down Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch. 

_Myra_

_Eddie_

_I don’t wanna see you ‘round these parts no more, you heard?_

A tip of the hat and it’s two banditos gone into the sunset. 

“So.” Richie says when they’re pulling out of the gate of the sensible residential community and onto the street of the sensible suburb it’s tucked away in. Whichever words he chooses to say right now have to be done with the utmost care, lest Eddie breaks the steering wheel with his white knuckle grip. “How would you feel about breakfast?” 

He can see Eddie’s teeth, grinding to a fine dust behind his cheek, eyes furious and unblinking on the road in front of him. He sniffs and says, “Yeah, let’s get breakfast.”

\- 

Eddie is decimating a heap of scrambled eggs when Richie wipes his mouth on a napkin and tells him, “That’s not fair, they didn’t do anything to you.” They’re in a hole in the wall diner that makes Denny’s look like a Michelin starred restaurant, and there’s at least four other people in here that have problems worse than theirs. It’s comforting. “First off, I’m proud of you. Super, over the top proud of you. Asking for a divorce is scary shit, but when that woman came out of the front door looking like the reanimated corpse of Sonia Kaspbrak, finally ready to kill me for getting you drunk that one time in high school? I thought Pennywise was making trips out of Derry.” 

Eddie looks up at him, eyes bloodshot and frantic. Richie thinks he might start yelling, or even worse crying, but he lets out an exhausted huff of a laugh and says, “What the fuck is wrong with me? Who marries their _mother_?”

“People who were, you know, abused.” Richie sifts through the rack of syrups, settling on the butter pecan. He’s never actually tried it before, so why not start now? “And closeted.” 

“I don’t know why you’re saying that like you’re surprised, I was dating you in high school.” 

And this is where Richie rests his elbows on the table, folding his arms and staring in the direction of the cooking staff, slinging greasy hash browns behind the counter, “Eds, I was— it was complicated then, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t—” 

He trails off and a shame he hasn’t contended with since his youth makes his face feel simultaneously hot and cold at the same time. “If I didn’t what?” Eddie asks, voice dangerous. 

A waitress bumps Richie’s chair, touches his shoulder briefly and says, “So sorry, sir.” He takes a deep breath, this is fine. “If you didn’t count it.” 

Eddie hardly lets him finish before he’s pitched forward, eyebrows severe, and hisses out, “Of course it counted, of course it fucking— Richie.” He runs his wrist under his nose, swallows like he’s composing himself, “Richie you were always— you were _always_ Richie to me, and I was always gay.” 

A finality. 

There, that’s it, done. Risks analyzed, contract drawn up, crisis fucking averted. 

“You should be a youth counselor.” Richie says and unloads half the bottle of syrup on his pancakes, “You can just intimidate their insecurities away.” 

“Maybe I fucking will.” 

Richie laughs and shoves a wad of pancakes into his mouth. “So what’s the plan, Sam?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean, you just left your wife, you came out, congratulations, and now you’re a free and living man, ready to roam the world. Do you wanna go to a museum? There’s like, flea markets all over the place, we could go spelunking, or skiing? Do you want to go skiing?” 

“It’s August.” 

“So?” Richie snatches the bill out of the waitress's hand too fast to be considered polite, but he had to stop Eddie from getting it first, “It’s always ten degrees in Ohio or something, I’m sure they have skiing there.” 

Eddie adopts a fond look, and Richie is proud of himself for washing away the tension, “I don’t want to go skiing in Ohio, but flea markets sound kind of nice. I just wanna be where you are.” 

It’s too kind. Too open, and too genuine and Richie is moments away from overexposure. He wants to squirrel Eddie away to a hotel— something nice that he splurged money on— and kiss him like they did on the floor of the townhouse. He wants to hold him in his arms and tell him that he loved him to pieces when they were kids and fuck it all if he doesn’t want to fall in big stupid love with him now. Richie wants to grab Eddie’s hands across the table and affix them to his chest, right over his wildly beating heart and ask him if he can feel it. If the way he’s alive and standing and existing is branding it’s way into his own veins. If Richie can just cover him and live inside of him and run and bite and _howl_ — 

Richie drops a wad of cash on the table instead, “Shit, alright, Mr. Low Standards, let’s go look at some five cent paperback novels.”


	3. Chapter 3

Eddie ends up with a plastic bag filled to the brim with books. They’re the cheap, trade published paperbacks with yellowed pages and covers that are frayed down to their cotton fibers. The covers are mostly poorly rendered science fiction works, with spaceships and constellations, but there’s the occasional romance novel in there with a swooning heroine, clinging to the bare chest of some stable boy/duke/lumberjack. 

It crinkles while Eddie sifts through his new treasures, the red Thank You Thank You Thank You, faded from being a reuse. “I think you should go back and get that turn dial radio.” 

“The dude said it hasn’t worked in years.” Richie tears open a bag of Twizzler bites with his teeth, “It looks exactly like that one I had in my room though. Probably is the one I had in my room, piece of shit.” He says fondly. 

Eddie looks up, stealing some of Richie’s candy with crafty fingers, “Holy shit, I forgot about that thing. Do you remember how we used to hide under the sheets with it on super low so that your mom wouldn’t hear and find out I had snuck into your room?” 

“I can’t believe everyone thought you were the good kid.” Richie sniffs. He’s wearing shorts for the first time in probably three years, and his legs are so blindingly pale, it’s a little surprising no one’s called the cops on him for being a visual hazard. He got them at a stand in the flea market though, and it has little pink flamingos embroidered into the navy material and he obviously had no choice but to change into them immediately. 

“We weren’t doing anything bad.” Eddie says fondly, his mouth curved into an easy grin while he idly sorts through his books, “Nothing we did was— we weren’t bad, Rich.” 

_We weren’t doing anything bad_

It unravels, sick and parasitic inside of Richie, the sound of Bowers, the sound of Derry in his ear. Telling him that he’s gross, he’s an animal, he’s _bad bad bad_. He shakes his head, sucks on a twizzler and wants the cherry to wash away the taste of guilt that his past soaked him in. Eddie’s right though, they weren’t bad kids. They were a little grimy, and a little crass, but they both loved fiercely, and they were loyal and they were brave in the face of it all. Even if they were only brave in front of each other, it was something. They kissed and they held hands, they laughed, the dance, they fought, and it was all things that wouldn’t have mattered if Richie had kept that fucking bow in his hair, but that would have made it not real. 

“I think i’m gonna go through the record crates again, actually.” Richie pushes himself off of the ‘We Buy Gold’ sign that he’s been leaned against. 

Eddie practically beams up at him, “You’re going to buy the radio?” 

“You’re practically wetting yourself about this thing, Eds, you know you can always buy it too?” 

“No.” Eddie shoves all of his books into the bag and bounces up on his feet, “No, it doesn’t count if I do. You have to buy it.” 

Richie looks all over his stupid beuatiful handsome face. Thick eyebrows, long, bumpy nose, eyes like he was born in the deadlights— freckles, determination, that terrible dimple in his left cheek meant only to tear Richie to fucking shreds. “I’m going to look at records.” He enunciates, and Eddie rolls his eyes, grabbing his hand and dragging him back down the aisles of people and the rows of stands. 

All Richie can think about is the way their fingers are laced together. 

Richie ends up buying the radio. 

The woman at the booth speaks chaotically fast through a slurred southern accent and Richie ends up imitating it, more out of instinct than for a bit, and Eddie takes no fewer than five loud inhales of embarrassment. “Where you from, son?” She asks Richie only it comes out more, “Wareuh from?”

“Maine!” Richie beams. 

It doesn’t sink in with her that this man is _not_ speaking with a Maine accent and he suddenly sounds entirely different. “Yer man from Maine too?” She nods her chin up at Eddie. 

Ever the gentlemen, Eddie smiles all tight lipped and demure, “Yes, ma’am.” 

“Right.” Lady Boomhauer says, and she pats the top of the radio, “Enjoy yer music, gentlemen.” 

It _is_ exactly like the radio that Richie remembers from his childhood, and he even gives into the urge to check for Went’s name scrawled onto the back in marker, tilting it in his hands and inspecting the course tan canvas overlayed on the top. “This is really cool.” Richie mutters while they head back to the car. Eddie sticks his face directly in front of Richie, and he doesn’t even have to say “See! I told you so!”, it’s written all across those frantic, sleep deprived, fresh off the field divorcee eyes. Richie taps his face, right against one of those deep dimples, “Don’t get too excited, this was my idea.” 

Eddie sounds like he’s going to have a conniption, right there next to the knock off designer luggage and a pop up stand of bored looking high schoolers charged with making funnel cakes. “You’ve never had a good idea in your life. If it was up to you, we would probably be at a shitty, backwoods strip club spending our last ten dollars on a girl dressed like Xena.” 

“Are you saying that doesn’t sound fucking awesome?”

“I’m saying that I’m gay and we wouldn’t have have a radio.” 

“I’m sure we could cop for a lapdance from Hercules.” Richie doesn’t set Eddie on the straight and narrow with all of this. It would be the easiest time to tell him that he is also gay. That their time as high school sweethearts was the height of romance in his life, and that their I Survived™ makeout in the Derry Townhouse didn’t come with a no homo clause. He wonders if that’s what Eddie thinked happened. That Richie was so overcome with relief and affection that they both survived— that Richie had fallen unscathed from the deadlights and the hole in Eddie’s chest had stitched itself together when Pennywise had crumpled to dust and decay— that they were here against all odds, and he couldn’t help it. 

He could tell Eddie the truth, but he doesn’t. 

They stop at a hotel that looks like it changes it’s sheets regularly with a Chili’s in the parking lot, and Richie hands Eddie his debit card, “You go check us in, I need to make a phone call real quick.” 

Eddie looks like he might argue with him about it, but he ends up setting his mouth in a determined line instead and taps the key where it’s in the ignition, “I’m leaving it on so you have air, but _please_ remember to take it out when you’re done.” 

“That’s what your mom—”

Eddie ducks down to look in the car, absolute wildfire. Richie laughs and waves him off. 

He waits until Eddie is all the way across the parking lot and into the lobby when he takes a deep breath and scrolls through his contacts. It rings a few times and the gentle “Hello?” strips away his anxiety. 

“Hi, mom, how are you?”

“Richie.” She says his name like it’s a relief, “How are you, honeybee? Your dad saw a story about you in one of those magazines—” She’s says those like _those_. Evil, leeches, hellbent on ruining her little boys’ life. “It said all these terrible things about a drug overdose and rehab, and a mental break. I couldn’t get ahold of you, but Steve said you were okay—”

“You talked to my agent?” It’s sort of endearing. 

Maggie sighs, “Of course I did, Richard, this is exactly like when you were a kid. I could never find out where you were and I would have to call all over Derry until I found whichever one of your friends mom’s you were terrorizing.” 

Richie laughs softly, tapping on the radio in his lap, “You’re chatty today, Mags.” He comments and then she laughs, “What happened? Wentworth got in his Viagra prescription?”

“Oh, for the love of— How are you, Richie? Seriously?” 

The sky is getting dark, but not in a normal evening way. There’s grey storm clouds moving in with the nighttime, overcast in a way that suggests it’ll get dark and rumbly, but never actually rain. “I’m okay.” Richie puts the phone on speaker and rests it on top of the dashboard, “I was kind of going through something— I’m kind of still going through something, but I’m getting better. I feel good.” 

There’s some shuffling on the other end of the line, where his mom is probably trying to settle her phone against her face. “Well, I’m glad you’re starting to feel better, then.” She says in a way that sounds like she’s not _that_ pleased. “Have you thought about seeing a therapist?” 

Richie watches people amble in and out of the lobby doors of the hotel, “Yeah, it’s a good idea.” He mumbles, “Mom, I went back to Derry. I met up with my friends from school, Mike Hanlon called us.” 

Maggie makes a soft shocked noise, “I remember your friends! All those boys you used to go down to the quarry with, that poor girl you used to drag around with you, what was her name? Becca?” 

“Bev.” Richie grins down at his lap, “Don’t feel bad for her, she held her own just fine. Do you remember Eddie Kaspbrak?” 

He closes his eyes. _Just tell me it was real. Tell me you remember what I looked like when I was happy. When I was in love._ “Oh!” Maggie hums, “Yeah— yeah! Little Eddie, he was the polite one with the freckles and the eyes.” 

“Freckles and the eyes.” Richie says, like that didn’t describe most of them. It’s still very much _Eddie_. “Yeah, that’s him. Do you— um.” Richie’s eyes are burning with the threat of tears and he blinks furiously, “Anyways, we’re taking a road trip right now, it was impromptu. Seeing the sights, traversing the ole’ stars and stripes.” 

Maggie doesn’t say anything to him for a moment, and then, “You were very close to him as a kid.” 

“Yeah.” 

She huffs out a laugh, “He was your sweetheart.” She says it like she’s finally starting to remember the extent of it all, “Eddie used to make you so happy, honeybee.” 

Richie claps his hand over his mouth to keep a terrible sob from climbing up his throat, and he has to breathe deep, letting his mom rattle on until he manages breathing again, “I gotta go, mom, Eddie’s checking us into a hotel and I have to make sure he’s not terrorizing the staff right now, I just wanted to say hi. Let you know the tabloids are false and I’m not in rehab. You didn’t raise a quitter like that.” 

“Rich.” Maggie warns, “Well, feel free to call more, and if you’re heading through Arizona, you should come by and see me and dad. We’d love to have you and Eddie over for a few nights!”

There isn’t a joke that Richie could heave into this conversation to keep his emotions from spilling all over this. He watches Eddie emerge from the automatic doors, face a distinguishable frown even from the distance. Richie nods, “Yeah, mom, that sounds really good. I’m sure Eddie will want to see you guys too. Love you.” 

“I love you too, Richie. Send lots of pictures!” 

He doesn’t hit end on his phone where it’s still on the dash, just waits for his mom to hang up and picks at the top of his radio while Eddie opens the front door. “The staff here is surprisingly competent.” 

“So you only yelled twice, then?” Richie jokes, but it’s strained. 

“No, I didn’t— Hey, are you okay?” Eddie sits down in the driver’s seat, left leg still hanging out onto the pavement, “Were you crying? Who were you talking to?” 

Richie digs the inside of his wrist into his eye, up underneath his glasses and coughs, “My mom, it’s fine, everything’s— fine.” 

“She’s not sick or anything is she?” Eddie’s voice is quiet, careful, “Her and Wentworth are doing good?” 

He says it with such a fondness, it echoes his mom’s own sentiment and Richie has to laugh to keep from crying again, “Yeah, yeah, the old folks are good. They’ve got smartphones now, they’re probably busy with their puzzles on there. Mom says hi.” 

Eddie lights up a little at that, “God, Maggie was the best, send her a text, tell her I said hi back.” He puts his hand on top of Richie’s knee, “Do you want to bring our stuff up to the room and then get something to eat? There’s that Chili’s right there and I know you’re gonna be easy as fuck for those two for one margaritas.” 

“You know me so well.” Richie says, and then he’s crying. 

Eddie huffs out a laugh, “Come on you big baby, i’m not carrying all your shit.” He ends up piling all of Richie’s bags over his shoulders anyway, only leaving him to cling to his radio like a kid with a security blanket. “Someone’s gonna call the cops on us.” Eddie huffs out when they’re shuffling through the cold air of the lobby, “‘Yeah, 911, some tightwad looking tech bro’s abducted sasquatch and is forcing him into a Marriott.” 

Richie blubbers, “You _do_ look like a tech bro.” 

“I know.” Eddie presses the four button roughly thirty times rapidly while the door closed, “That’s why I fucking said it. So that you can’t use it against me later.” 

Settling in is a silent affair, where Eddie putters around the room, hanging up their shirts in the closet and emptying their toiletries into the bathroom while Richie sits on the end of one of the queen sized beds and places the radio carefully on top of the comforter next to him. Eddie holds up a pair of Richie’s pajama pants, threadbare, black and dark grey checkered, “Wanna give those shorts a break?” 

“Are you trying to get me out of my clothes?” 

“Turn it off for a second.” Eddie drags one of the heavy wooden chairs from the tiny desk and drags it up to the bed, “Let’s just be us right now.”

Richie feels completely cored just from a few minutes of weepy moping and merely existing, and his eyes feel heavy behind his glasses. “What happened to Eddie? This nice Google associate is obviously a body snatcher.” 

Eddie runs his hand over the front of his shirt, rests in on his sternum where there should be a hole gored through him. “Dying will do that to a man, I guess. Why are you sad?” He leans his chin against Richie’s knee, looks up at him with his sorrowful, giant eyes. 

“I’m not sad.” His fingers ache to push through Eddie’s hair. He twists them into the bedspread instead, “I’m a little sad. It’s not fair— I was so happy, when I was a kid, we were— we were happy, and I had the Losers and my entire life, and then I lost it. I was with you, and we were in love and I lost it.” 

The last part comes out quiet, more of a whispered confession. Eddie sits up in his chair, “You didn’t lose me, Richie, I’m right here. We just had to pause for a little while.” 

“You made me so wild.” Richie steels up all of his bravery and looks back at Eddie, “You _still_ make me feel so wild.” 

“I’m not an easy man to love—”

“That’s not true.” 

Eddie laughs, pushes himself out of his chair, “It is, but Richie— You made it seem easy. And you make me feel wild too.” He kisses him softly, a gentle push of lips and runs his thumb over the side of Richie’s cheekbone, “Put your pajamas on, we’ll see what terrible movies are available on here.” 

“No margaritas?” Richie’s voice is strained and desperate, just the way he feels. 

“You’re about to pass out, you look fucking exhausted, and I’m only allowing us one emotional meltdown each this trip.” 

Richie leans his face into Eddie’s hand, “That’s not very realistic considering the shit we’ve been through.” 

“I know, baby.” He kisses Richie again like he’s not entirely unmaking him right now. 

Richie wants to beg an explanation out of him, a steady cry of _What are we? Is this new, is this old, are we picking up where we left off?_ He puts on his pants instead and flings his shirt into the corner of the room, hoping that Eddie will see it and curse at him. Eddie comes out of the bathroom, gets all flushed and awkward and stands like a frozen video game character at the foot of the bed. “You’re not wearing a shirt.” 

“I paid a lot of money to do this.” Richie settles down against the pillows. They’re almost too soft but he needs the added comfort tonight, “Am I offending your delicate sensibilities? Tempting you with this irresistible dad bod? I don’t even have kids, by the way, I achieved this look all on my own.” 

Eddie closes his eyes, juts his chin forward stubbornly and says, “Put a shirt on so I can share a bed with you tonight.” Oh, “Please.” 

It’s the last, desperate sounding plea that makes Richie get up and dig through his duffle bag, picking up a t-shirt that doesn’t have a big vinyl graphic on it that might make him sweat in the middle of the night. Eddie climbs in next to him, on top of the sheets like a blushing virgin while they watch Master and Commander in spanish, and then slowly works his body under the bedspread, one limb at a time. He does it like a kid that thinks he’s being sneaky and his parent can’t see his greedy hand creeping towards a cookie that hasn’t cooled off yet. 

Richie snuffles loudly, very obviously faking sleep, and curls around Eddie, dragging him up against Richie’s chest. Eddie goes tense and Richie cracks an eye open, takes in his startled expression and slams it closed again, letting out a loud snore. He can feel Eddie’s laughter shaking in his arms and he grins, settling his face into the side of Eddie’s neck. 

He dreams, and Richie’s teeth are sharp and terrible and he uses them to howl, to tear his clothes to ribbons, and his claws to scrap what’s left of Derry out of the earth. He sinks into moonlit water to wash away the dirt and the leaves and when he finally grows into his fur he doesn’t feel like a monster anymore.


End file.
